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Invisible Book Shelf

Take one part function, add one part optical illusion, and mix in a dash of humor. What’s the result? I imagine it looks something like this quirky shelf, called the Self Shelf, from Dutch by Design. While it looks like the contents of the shelf are held up by nothing at all, the bottom “book” actually is the shelf. (As a lover of the artist Magritte, I also appreciate that the title of the faux book, printed in French, is “This Is Not a Book.” Classic!) The shelves cost around $30 each, but you could fashion your own quite cheaply. Find a suitable book at a thrift store (I would use a hardcover for sturdiness), do some carving on the interior of the book to conceal floating shelf mounting hardware, secure the hardware to the book with Gorilla Glue, and Mod Podge around the edges of the pages to seal everything together.